Down hill!

I don't have any super amazing running tips for friends when they ask.  I don't have any incredible formula for knocking hours off your marathon time or minutes of your 5ks, but I do have a few things I do when I run that make it better.

• It's not about the miles ahead, it's about the miles completed.  I have 1,644 miles left this year, yeah, but I've already run 368!  I just leave the bad miles behind me, but realize a bad miles still a mile
• It's always down hill from here.  In a triathlon one time, a few spectators lied to me and said that the last 3 miles were "down hill."  I believed them and ran faster.  It wasn't but there's nothing like lying to yourself to keep ya moving.
• You're a real runner.  I don't look much like Paula Radcliffe (my British running idol) because I'm not 5'6" and 110 pounds (do I wanna be?  She is kinda scary) but I'm a real runner.  Everybody's a real runner.  Slow, fast, whoever, you're a real runner.
• Don't waste the pain (thanks, Heather, for this one).  I've run through knee pain, stress fracture pain, GI pain, menstrual pain, hunger pain, dehydration pain, academic pain etc.  I don't waste it.  Pain teaches us something.  Running pain teaches us that our minds are so much weaker than our bodies.  Push through. There's victory in the finish.  I could draw analogies for child birth and pregnancy from this but I'll save that for later.

Here's to a Monday where we remember it's not about the miles ahead, it's down hill from here, we're all real runners, and none of us are wasting the pain!

Persevere, press on, run fast.